The Kids Aren't Alright
by Madamethebloody
Summary: Heavily AU, partially self-insert. FemExile/OC and Atton slow burn. Rated M to be safe, violence and language within.
1. Chapter 1, Naked and Afraid

Everything hurts and there's nothing but black for a long time when I finally come around. There is a gnawing pain in my stomach but my throat isn't dry, so I'm not

dehydrated. But I'm so tired, truly exhausted. Despite this, I feel safe where I am. It's cool and warm at the same time, and surprisingly wet. Eventually I realize that I'm

submerged in liquid, probably a kolto tank. Though I can't remember where I am or how I got here. I just want to go back to sleep, but a voice in my head tells me I have to

move. Somehow, I know that if I stay here I'll die. I don't really mind that thought. But the voice is back and I know that I have to go, that is isn't time yet. I don't know how

long I remain still before my eyes sluggishly blink open.

The bright white lights of the room I'm in, a medbay, blind me for at least five minutes before my eyes adjust. And then immediately I see them. On either side of me, there are

two more kolto tanks, occupied by uniformed men. They're all dead, I know with a sick certainty. I panic, flailing about in my tank, yanking off my face mask and pushing

upwards against the lid. The top opens and I scramble out, falling onto the floor. My long dark hair is matted against my face and I take deep gasping breaths. I do not want to

be surrounded by these corpses but it takes me at least ten minutes before I can force movement into my muscles again, at first crawling towards the door, then finally standing

and rushing towards it. It opens easily and I'm out of the room and away from the bodies. The door closes behind me, and I lean against a wall for a moment to assess my

situation. Outside of the kolto, I'm in my underwear, soaked and cold. I don't even have shoes. I cough to test my voice, before tentatively calling out a "Hello?" I still have no

clue where I am, but someone had to put me in that tank. The last thing I can remember is being on the Harbinger, after the Republic found me...but I don't think that this is a

republic facility. I have been in enough of those to know the feel, the bright orange stripes on everything, walls oozing patriotism, unseen eyes watching your every twitch.

The fact remains that I cannot be alone here, wherever here is, but I can't 'sense' anyone. Granted, my 'senses' are pretty rusty from a complete lack of use and prolonged

isolation. I may have to rely on what I can hear, see, and touch. I push away from the wall and head into the next room, bare feet padding against the cold metal floor. There

are some plasteel cylinders filled with medpacks and chemicals, but no clothes. I grab a pack and gather what I can. Medpacks never hurt, and I was in that kolto tank for a

reason. Force, I wish I could remember what happened. The only other thing in the room is a computer terminal. I log on and access the medical records, which indicate that

someone added enough sedative to the kolto tanks to kill the others, but somehow I survived. This is insanity. Is someone trying to kill me? Or the uniformed men? Why? I

have a pretty good idea how I survived, but was the killer aware of my background? I have plenty of questions and no answers. I was counting on finding someone to help me,

but it seems more likely that I'll find someone who wants to kill me. But I'm hungry and naked and the voice is telling me that I have to keep going, so I do.

Big mistake, because the next room I enter is a morgue. And it's full. I turn on my heel and sprint out of the room and down the hall. I quickly open the door to the next room

and only to be faced with another dead body, as well as the remains of some sort of droid. I take several deep breaths, attempting to center myself and quell my panic. It feels as

if the ghosts of this place and all its dead are suffocating me. Remembering my training, I disconnect from the situation, from reality, and move to examine the body. It was

killed by some sort of blaster fire, dressed in the same uniform as all the other corpses. I take a vibroknife from it's pocket and move to examine the droid. I've never seen one

like it before, and I've seen a lot of droids. This one is obviously outfitted with serious hardware- designed for digging, perhaps? My suspicions tell me that the droid attacked the

man, who destroyed it before dying of his injuries. But I can tell that this droid was not designed for combat. I have a really bad feeling about all of this.

My intuition tells me that there is danger in the next room, but it's the only way forward, and there is something pulling me in that direction. I brace myself before opening the

door, revealing another droid, but this one is in working order. It turns, slowly and clunkily, at the sound of the door, and I see it's lasers warming up to fire at me. But it's stiff,

not built for dexterity, and so obviously not a combat model. I easily dodge the blasts and do a forward roll to come directly in front of it, too close to be shot, and plunge the

vibroknife into its behavior core, effectively shutting it down. Simple, but I haven't been in combat in a long time. I am equally surprised and disturbed at how easily it all comes

back. Still, I'm out of practice and running on empty. If I come up against a real opponent, or even multiple droids, I won't be able to fend them off. I continue on to what seems

to be the security center, which is eerily empty. I'm able to find a stealth field generator, which I equip. Logging onto the security terminal, I check the cameras of the next

room, showing them to be full of droids. Perfect. Past that is an enormous control center of some sort, empty save for more droids. The only other camera shows a detention

center, with a dark haired man imprisoned in a force cage. He's alive! Of course, the only other living person here would be a criminal. Hopefully, he's only in there because he

pissed off the person who killed everyone else. Perhaps we have the same enemies. Regardless, he's my only hope at this point. Switching on my new stealth field generator, I

check to make sure that it is fully operational before heading into the next room, sneaking past the droids into the control center. There are even more droids in here. How am I

supposed to get into the prison and talk to that man without attracting their attention? Rather than go directly to the detention quarters, my feelings guide me in the opposite

direction. I am greeted by enormous bay windows looking out into black space. Out there are countless asteroids precariously drifting much too close for comfort. Where in hell

am I? This isn't a ship, I'm not on a planet, and Telos citadel station where I was supposed to be heading is not in the middle of a damn asteroid field. I head to the nearest

terminal, which reveals nothing as to where I am. All systems are unresponsive, except for a command to power down the droids, which I do. They all immediately shut down

and fall to the floor with a thud. Now that the threat is gone, I switch off my stealth generator to save the battery. There is no reason for me not to go confront the prisoner,

and he's my only hope for information. Fighting my unease, I turn back and head toward the detention facility.

AN: Lucasarts owns everything, yadda yadda. So yeah. Kreia will not be in this story like she is in the game, because I personally find her to be an annoying cockblock. But that doesn't mean that without her there will be major raunchy times, because this isn't that kind of story, exactly. Review if you have comments/questions/concerns!


	2. Chapter 2, Will You Be Mine?

**AN: Some of the dialogue I borrowed/butchered came directly from the game, all rights to Lucasarts. I'm considering writing some of this from Atton's POV as well. Review and let me know what you think.**

Just outside the door to the detention center, I pause. I can feel him on the other side of the door in his force cage. I reach out with my mind, but his pushes back. I let it go. I'm good at that, ignoring problems. The last thing I need to deal with is more weirdness I can't explain.

I open the door and feel overwhelmingly sheepish due to my nudity. The man has dark brown hair that is almost falling into his dark eyes. One look at him and it's obvious that he is a fighter, as well as the run of the mill scoundrel. He's dressed in a thick leather jacket over a white tunic over a dark thermal, spacer pants, and black boots. He is taller than average, and I suspect that underneath all those layers he's adequately muscular. He looks up as the door opens, eyes widening slightly as he looks me up and down.

"Are you an angel?" His deep, husky voice is full of false awe. "Aw, I'm just kidding." He chuckles. "That's the worst line I've ever used. Hope some poor kid doesn't start using it."

I can't help but laugh a little. So he's a comedian. Lovely. Immediately, I feel more at ease, but I know I shouldn't let my guard down. Well, at least he doesn't seem too dangerous.

But the voice is back, telling me we don't have time to play games. "Who are you?"

"Atton. Atton Rand. Excuse me if I don't shake hands. The field only causes mild electrical burns. And you?"

"I'm Alix." I remember my name, at least.

"Okay, Alix. Nice outfit. Wait, you're not a miner, are you? You're like, the size of a gizka," He scoffs.

I ignore his last comment. "Miners? Wait, is this a mining colony? What is this place?"

"You mean you didn't come here on purpose?" Again with the sarcasm. I want to be annoyed, but he's so amiable that I can't help but be amused. "I'm shocked, really. This slice of paradise is the Peragus mining facility, supplier of engine fuel." How in sweet sookie did I come to be here?! "It's sure fun to mine, especially if you like blowing yourself up."

"What's that about blowing yourself up?"

"That asteroid belt out there is a giant minefield. One wrong proton or blaster shot, and it'll all go up like a kid's pop detonator." Of course I'd come to be on a world so unstable that it would remind me of Malachor. But I don't have time to think about that now.

"What are you doing in there?"

"Security claimed I violated some trumped-up regulation. Take it up with them if you want, but they stopped listening to me shortly after they stopped feeding now. Now that's criminal, if you ask me."

"So you are a criminal?"

"Listen sweetheart, I'm a lot of things, and some may have called me a 'criminal', but I'm not gonna hurt you."

Against my better judgement, I believe him. It's probably because I don't have a choice, unless I want to figure all this out on my own, which I do not.

"How long have you been in here?"

"A week. But you're the first person I've seen in two days."

If he's telling the truth, then according to the med logs he couldn't have been the one to have administered the sedatives or be responsible for the rest of the missing miners. So of course that's what he would say. I'm having trouble reading him, but I'm not sensing deception, at least not about this.

"Please tell me you know what's going on around here."

"You mean, before or after that Jedi showed up?" No no no no. He says the word so casually, but it sends off alarm bells in every cell of my body. I'm panicking on the inside, desperately trying to keep it together in front of this stranger. Luckily, he's so engrossed in his story that he doesn't seem to notice my internal meltdown. He continues, "Either way, it's a real short story. Y'see, this Jedi shows up, and ya know what that means- where there is one Jedi, the Republic will soon be crawling up your ion engine in no time."

None of this makes a lick of sense. If I came to be here separate from the Republic, how could anyone have known about my identity, my past? Atton's still talking.

"But the story gets better. See, some of the miners get it into their ferrocrete skulls that since the Jedi's unconscious, they can collect the Exchange bounty posted on live Jedi. Well, what passes for authority here didn't like that idea, so the two sides started fighting. Then there was some big explosion, I was sitting here for a long time, then you showed up in your underwear and things got a lot better." He smirks at me, then abruptly looks horrified for a brief second before recovering and asking as calmly as he manage, "Wait. How old even are you?"

I look shyly at the ground, tucking a stray lock behind my ear, and take a deep breath. Looking up, I reply as confidently as I can manage, "Nineteen."

Immediately he seems relieved. Chuckling, he says "Okay, great. I didn't wanna be responsible for some kid, y'know…" he trails off.

"I can take care of myself fine, thanks."

"Yeah, I'm sure. That's why you're running around barefoot and in your underwear."

"Tough talk from the man who has been locked up for seven days."

"Okay, okay, fair enough. Look, not like your half naked interrogation isn't a personal fantasy of fine..." I can't help but blush. Everywhere. "But...hey, wait a minute, you're that Jedi the miners were talking about!"

Oh, sithspit. "No, no no I'm not." I stammer. "At least, not really." Atton is regarding me apprehensively now. I continue to ramble. "I used to be a padawan learner, but I'm not anymore. And I was never a Jedi."

He doesn't seem convinced. "Well, where is everybody?"

"I was hoping that you knew. I just woke up in a kolto tank like an hour ago, and there are corpses everywhere, you're the first living person I've found. The facility seems abandoned."

"The miners can't all be gone. But if they are…" He trails off, looking up at me and smiling nervously. "Look, hey, lemme out, and I can help you, I can. I've gotten outta trouble countless times." He grins genuinely at that. I don't really have a reason to not let him out. I have to trust that I would have sensed something by now if he meant to harm me. Still, the voice in my head warns me to be careful as I switch off the force cage.


End file.
